"We finished the third quarter as planned. The business areas performed
as expected, but associated companies underperformed, essentially due
to currency impact.

"In July we forecast rapidly increasing economic uncertainty and the
need to plan for alternative demand scenarios going forward. We
described the early signs of weakening demand and sales channel
inventory reductions in Fine Paper and Wood Products. Whereas we see
for example in coated fine paper stabilisation after inventory
corrections, it is clear that going into the fourth quarter our
customers, as well as ourselves, will reduce inventories and therefore
we will further step up the manufacturing curtailments which we already
increased significantly in the third quarter. If temporary lay-offs are
planned, they will be subject to co-determination negotiations.

"As before, in a rapidly changing business environment our priorities
are clear: cash preservation, defending our margins through active
capacity management, minimising the number of underutilised assets by
product swaps and continued cost-efficiency actions. The good news is
that we are now in a stronger position than a few years ago due to
lower fixed costs. We have enhanced flexibility through outsourcing and
other means of decreasing the negative earnings impact of reduced
demand. This path of improvements in costs and productivity, but also
flexibility is one we will continue to follow.

"Looking further ahead, our current strategic projects — the Montes del
Plata pulp mill in Uruguay, the Ostroleka containerboard machine in
Poland and the cross-laminated timber investment in Austria — are
proceeding according to plan. Inpac acquisition was completed in the
third quarter. Our strong balance sheet and cash position gives us a
solid platform to pursue our future in our selected growth areas."